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Literature Review of cultural diversity
Emergence of English as a global language
Literature Review of cultural diversity
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This essay describes the global spread of English, its advantages and disadvantages, and its’ affects on language from my perspective as an ESL/EFL teacher at the Shanghai Singapore International School (SSIS) located in the outskirts of Shanghai. SSIS differs from other international schools in Shanghai due to its’ large Asian student population . As a Singaporean international school, many places are given in preference to Singaporean students irrespective of their level of English . This policy has caused differentiated levels of English in the classroom - from students who do not speak English at home to those who are fluent English speakers, and has opened the door to other Asian students who have low English levels who struggle through the curriculum under their parents’ belief that their future success lies in being able to communicate in English. In this context many of the students are learning English at the expense of their first language. Parents, pursuing future economic success for their children, choose to educate them in schools where English is the medium of instruction instead of their native language. This is a reaction to the growing dependence of trade from China which has seen a necessary increase for communication – either the west learns to speak Chinese or the Chinese will have to learn English to do trade (Phillipson 2008, p. 37). This results in a monolingual language policy that glorifies and allocates resources to learning English and renders other languages invisible (Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas 1996, p. 437). My personal narrative in this essay includes my own background and how it has influences my observations of my students in watching them struggle to gain knowledge through their second or thi... ... middle of paper ... ...2005, p. 41; Rajagopalan 2004, p. 111). DY’s context epitomizes Phillipson’s (1996) ‘ecology-of-language’ over the ‘diffusion-of-English’ paradigm, English speakers are able to understand non-standard British and American English and cope with a variety of accents, pronunciation, and dialects in English. A further issue to be considered is of what may lie in the future for DY when she leaves this community and experiences a monolingual environment of standard English where she may be seen as threatening to the linguistic power structure, or stigmatised through ‘linguistic prescriptivism’ (Kachru & Nelson 1996, p. 89) because of her dialect of English and nationality. Under the World English paradigm, Kachru & Nelson (1996) state that it is important to overcome monolingual views of people, language, cultures, and boundaries to give way to a broader view of English.
Prior to immigrating to America, Nicole attended a public school in China where all of her teachers were Chinese natives. At Nicole’s school in China, however, English is a required course of study taught mostly by emphasizing English vocabulary, completing short one-page writing assignments, and practicing spelling. Learning English pronunciations and engaging in realistic English conversation wasn’t the goal for educators in China. The goal in China was to prepare students to pass their post-high school exam, which was their ticket into attending a university. The exam is highly demanding for Chinese students because it requires knowledge of English reading, comprehension, spelling and writing. For Nicole, the most stressful part of this exam was that students taking it
Every year, the number of immigrants in the U.S. has grown “significantly.” Chen predicts that by the year of 2020, public schools will have at least 50 percent of students that are non-English speakers (¶5). This shows that it is important that public schools have a successful ESL program. The purpose of ESL programs is “to enhance” ESL students learning, to help students’ “emotional well-being”, and to accelerate students’ ability to learn the new language. According to Chen, some district schools have failed to support ESL students’ learning. For example, Chen stated that “...[some] school districts [have been] accused of not meeting t...
Amy Tan has provided her experience about growing up with different types of English language. She told a story about her encounter with the different types of English she uses with her husband and her mother and how these languages are apart of her life. I never would’ve thought that written language differed from spoken language, until Tan told her story. Her experiences were quite emotional, because she had to pretend to be her mother on the telephone. The communicators on the other end of the line did not understand Tan’s mother or take her very seriously, which I found to be uncivil. It’s important for people to learn to be patient with those who need time to speak and those who have trouble with a secondary language.
Language has been said to effect culture and a person’s way of thinking; in addition to culture effecting language. Throughout the last 100 years there have been apparent and subtle changes in the English language. The changes an English speaking person may see throughout their life time are different catchphrases, the way language is written, the type of formality used, and how deeply English is affected by cultures; as well as how it effects other cultures around the world.
DeFrancis, J. (1994). On Degendering English. Biography, Volume 17, Number 3, 1994, pp. 296-300 (article) University of Hawaii Press DOI: 10.1353/bio.2010.0312.
In “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan aims to reveal the cultural bias on types of language by appealing to her reader throughout the argument. Throughout the essay, she states that all forms of English are valid, proves that people with so-called broken English are treated poorly, and uses both personal experience as well as broad examples to prove her point, all the while utilizing both ethos and logos to appeal to her audience.
Another difficulty cultures deal with is language and the way people speak. In some cases, people struggle to belong by making changes in the way they speak the English language just to be assimilated. They attempt to use words and letters, as well as body language that fit in the norm; all in an attempt to denounce their original intonation and style of pronunciation. One ...
In the opening of the article, Freire points out that the narrative education makes the learning process become pointless and destroys the student’s creativity. “A careful analysis of the teacher- student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified.” (Freire, 71) By using the existing analysis, Freire states the relationship between student and teacher is almost narrative: the students play the role of objective receiver, while the teacher (narrator) gains satisfaction from “depositing” their knowledge in students’ mind.
English has undoubtedly become a global language which is utilized in many fields of the international scale. This language is a great tool that enables the people around the world to effectively communicate, exchange and trade with each other. When someone masters in English, he/she somewhat receives more benefits in studying and working tasks than the ones whose English are limited. In the article “ Mother Tongue,” the author, Amy Tan presents some situations and experiences that she has had throughout her life when her mother is a Chinese-American spoken. She notices her feelings and her thought when she acknowledges her mother language’s limitation. The stories that Tan has experienced with her mother’s language are also the typical stories
The unprecedented global spread English has experienced in the last years has paved the way for changes in the sociolinguistic profile of the language. In addition to the fact that new varieties have emerged, the number of functional domains in which English plays a role has increased significantly (Sharma, 2008). Currently, English is not only a tool serving national purposes, but also a language institutionalised in several former British and American colonies, and a lingua franca used worldwide. This phenomenon has raised concern about the classification of World Englishes, as well as, about the need to adapt English Language Teaching (ELT) to the new reality. Assuming Kachru’s Concentric Circles Model, this paper will argue that pedagogies based on English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) would be more consistent with the functions of English in Expanding-circle countries than native-centered teaching methods. With this objective, this essay will first give an overview of Kachru’s model, secondly, it will consider the implications ELF methodologies have for classroom practices, and, finally, the advantages and drawbacks of such a pedagogy will be evaluated.
Sasaki, Masamichi, Tatsuzo Suzuki, and Masato Yoneda. English as an International Language in Non-Native Settings in an Era of Globalization. Comparative Sociology 2006 5(4): 381-
113-117. 151-195. The. English: A Linguistic Tool Kit, (2012), (U214, Worlds of English, DVD ROM), Milton Keynes, The Open University. English in the World, (2012), (U214, Worlds of English, DVD ROM), Milton Keynes, The Open University.
Kachru, B. B. (1992). Teaching world Englishes. The other tongue: English across cultures, 2, 355-366.
English spreads widely in each countries, no matter the area of region or information transfer, English becomes an important position in global language. As the specification of a global language, it essentially refers to a language that learned and spoken internationally, so English can be the most out-standing. According to the number of English-speaking calculations, English is the official language used by most countries, English is the most widely used second language in the world, and the percentage of web pages with English content is estimated to be over 50% (Crystal, 2003). Meanwhile, the history and usefulness cause English to be a global language, and they mainly influence to spread English faster in China and to bring convenience
The spread of English where it used as a foreign and/or a second language may be compromised if it is replaced by another language such as Chinese or Spanish. For example, if China continues to gradually dominate the world economically, politically and technologically, its language could replace English as the major foreign language taught and learnt in various countries’ education systems because they b...